Cellular radiotelephones have become increasingly popular for many different reasons, including their potential availability in case of emergency. However, conventional cellular phones may not adequately meet emergency communication service needs because they are designed to achieve goals other than providing emergency communication services.
Emergency communication services differ from normal communication services. Emergency communication services are seldom needed, but when they are needed it is desirable that they be highly reliable and dependable. Emergency situations often are accompanied by extreme stress or panic on the part of callers, and very little mental or physical effort on the part of a caller is desirable in obtaining emergency communication services.
A recent development in mobile cellular systems is the ability to transfer short messages between an application residing on a mobile station and another application residing on a mobile network element, such as a message center for example. This service is sometimes referred to as a SMS (short message service). These messages might include mobile originated point-to-point messages, mobile terminated point-to-point, and broadcast for example.